Bounce back

[Roadkill]

Have ya'll ever had a bullet "bounce back" at you?
Me & my buddy Ken were out today shooting at cans and such and he shot ata old Ford hub cap with a .32 revolver he'd chromed when he worked at the metal plating place. We were too close and I told him not to but he did anyway and it came right back at him. Could have done bodily harm. And a few years back a sheriff buddy (if they are your friends its easier to know where they are <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> ) picked up a 1/2" thick piece of plexiglass and decided he wanted to use it as a clipboard and hold it in front of him during traffic stops for protection. Decided to test it. Stood back about 15 yds and shot it with a hot .38
and it bounced back so hard it hit him in the chest and raised up an egg sized knot, really made him mad. Is there a rule on this?
rk

[Thor]

While shooting bowling pins in local matches, the 230 gr 45 hard ball would knock the "toot" out of the pins and slam them way off the table, but many times could not penetrate a new pin (one that didnt have that hardened surface cracked or perforated yet) and after it slammed the pin, it would occassionaly bounce back and harmlessly hit the shooter or awaiting shooters in the foot. This was in an indoor range so it helped the bullet make it back to us. 9mms would routinely just slip through these pins with little momentum exchange. I did develop a load with the 9 that worked pretty good, a 115 gr silver tip (soft Hollow point) at 1325 from a Glock pistol, these would push the pins pretty good, but never as good as the heavy 45s did.

[trigger643]

I once took a PPK in .32 out to shoot at targets. The targets were in old tires. The tires were about 25 yards out. I missed the target, hit the tire. The bullet hit my shin, not breaking the skin, but leaving a nasty bruise. I carry nothing less than a .380 to this day.

My brother (a 9 year veteran of the US Navy SEALS), while instructing his girlfriend, shooting steel plates at 25', had an .45 acp round pop back and strike him in the arm, breaking the skin, embedding itself just below the skin.

He is recorded as the only gunshot wound in the 20th century admitted to the student health center at the University of Virginia. He had 'some splaining to do, lucy'...

[AGE]

Years ago I was perforating a 55 gallon drum to use as a waste paper burner. I found that .38 special wadcutter target loads bounced off rather than penetrated. My 1911 .45 ACP worked well in this application.

[unspellable]

This sort of thing can get ugly. A year or so back we had a fatality in Iowa. I don't recall hearing what they were shooting with, but they bounced one off an old bathtub. I don't recall if it was the shooter or his buddy who was done in.

Tires are notorious for bounce backs. The rubber has just the right give to prevent penetration and they can bounce back surprisingly heavy duty stuff.

[Thor]

When I was young and very foolish, I once fired a .380 PPK hardball into a metal siloette target at very close range. The bullet bounced, it missed young Thor but it struck his back window of his truck with a Thunderclap, Man......what a dumb$%^, I paid of my stupidity! I am so thankful it didnt stike me! It is a wonder I survived my earlier years! Oh....I could tell you stories!

[Heydrich]

I live in a somewhat rural part of Oregon, and as ya’ll, er, you all might guess, I’ve read some pretty interesting stories in the local newspaper. Once, one kid killed himself shooting at giant centipedes with his .22, one of the bullets hit a small rock, ricocheted up, and hit him in the head. Another time I read about two kids from Gaston, OR who were playing get this, “Combat”. They both had .22 rifles and were at opposite ends of a cow field, shooting real close to each other, to see what it was like to be in combat and be shot at. You guessed it, one of them accidentally shot the other dead.

[max2cam]

Kids shooting .22s at old cast iron bathtubs in dumps have been killed by bouce-backs or curve-backs.

I imagine the steel belts inside modern tires add to the problem as they are very strong.

The worst I've experienced is BBs bouncing back, but even they come back pretty hard.

[unspellable]

Guess I can say I've been a victim of this. When I was a kid I was reaching into the ditch for something or other and the kid from across the road fired his BB gun into the ditch. The BB bounced off a rock and caused on open wound on my forefinger. This would have been trivial except for the complication of blood poisioning. I can still remember the penicillian in the right side of my behind every morning and in the left side every afternoon for several days and my arm in a sling. I suppose if this had been before penicillian I would have lost the arm.

[Ron Wood]

Well, I guess I might as well add to the stories. As a kid, I was shooting at the hasp on our coal house with my brand new Daisy pump BB gun, don't ask me why. I was about 15 feet away from the hasp and the BB came back and hit me on the forehead dead center between the eyes. Many years later in Germany, we were firing annual qualification with the .45. We had finished firing and had about 1/2 box of ammo left so we decided to burn it up. I loaded up a magazine, walked to about 20 feet of the man-sized silhouette target about 10 feet in front of a dirt bank backstop, and proceeded to rip off as fast a group as I could. Grouped pretty well, and as I removed the mag and cleared the weapon, I looked down at my feet and still spinning like a top between my boots was a nearly perfect .45 bullet, hardly a mark on it other than very light rifling grooves. Still can't figure that one out.
I'm kind of like Thor, it's a wonder I survived my younger years.

[Jim Keenan]

One of the old safety rules says, "DO NOT SHOOT AT A HARD FLAT SURFACE OR THE SURFACE OF WATER."

Of course we forget.

Jim

[Eddie]

I have shot alot of rds. at harden steel plates and i have been hit with several bounce backs. I once shot an empty paint can with a 44mag. It hit the can on the right side traveled around the inside an came out the left side of the can. Scared the crap out of me. You have to be ready for anything.

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

Then there is the very surprising whacks you can receive shooting skeet and every so often bouncing one of the tiny little pellets off the edge of a clay pigeon. Enough to draw blood and make you glad you were wearing eye protection.